DIY Bucket food (beyond rice and beans)

[JeepHammer]

I don't put away food in storage.
I store what we eat.

Enlarge your pantry, rotate stocks, and store more of what your family eats.

AMEN!
The well stocked pantry!

Wouldn't work for everyone, but we do sugar (nitrate), keep it dry and it will last virtually forever.

Salt. Much easier to do home canning with salt.
We actually have several kinds of salt, different tastes and different applications.

Pepper corns. Dry them out & seal them up, last virtually forever. Grind them when you need them. We usually do pint jars in the oven to seal up the canning jars.

We dry several kinds of peppers out of the garden, but I can't grow a pepper corn tree in Indiana (I tried several times)
Dry peppers, then stick them in a can and oven seal them, again, virtually forever.

Canned & dried apples, along with whole root cellar apples.

Canning regular potatoes is a waste of time for me, takes a full on pressure canning and they always get mushy, more like mashed potatoes when they come out and you heat them up.
Baby new potatoes are another story, I put them in green beans with onions,
And I throw up a few cans of new/baby potatoes. I can't tell you why, but they keep their shape & texture better.

When you put potatoes in the root cellar, sit a saucer on top and set an apple on it.
The gasses from a decomposing apple will keep potatoes crisp MUCH longer.
(One of those grandpa things)

I home can tomatoes until I can't stand to see a tomato for a couple months.
Salsa, ketchup, tomato chunks & juice for soup, pasta sauce with the works, even meat when you pressure can.
I'm always amazed how many jars of tomato products we go through.

Pasta is stupid easy to make, dry and oven can.
Shells, noodles, spaghetti, get the moisture down to 3%-5% and seal jars in the oven.

There are so many beans & legumes I can't keep track, some make good flour, a real change of pace from plain old bleached wheat.
My old standby for stupid cold days is ham & bean soup with WAY too much butter, just cook it in the can while I'm pressure canning.
Out of the jar, into a pan for 5 minutes and off to the races! Good stuff!
You *Can* can corn bread, again, just cook it in the jar when canning it.
It comes out in chunks, but it's still corn bread!

My wife does cookies, cake & brownies in jars, and again, it cooks while it's canning/sealing.
The trick is to learn how much batter to put in the jar so it doesn't push the lids off and contaminate the seal.
The brownies don't last long, I know where she hides them!

I'm all for the well stocked pantry, but we also grow a lot of what's in the pantry, so I stock up on canning jar lids.
I want to eat next winter and the winter after that too!

 

[JeepHammer]

Over the past couple weeks, I've finally polished off the last of a case of MRE's that was 5ish years beyond expiration. When I first started eating them, I was pretty unhappy with them. Towards the end of the case I'd got used to MRE's enough that I could appreciate their worth. Still I want to do my own.

It makes sense as a gardener/prepper sort to make use of what I do for sustenance and hobby to be expanded upon to put up foods in various fashion to be prepared and save at the grocery.

If I never even see an MRE again with will be too soon.
I hear other guys I was in the Marines with say they miss them, but I sure don't!

Have you heard of 'One Jar' meals that are home canned?
Bacon, eggs, potatoes, biscuit all in the same jar in layers.
Sausage works better than bacon, but sometimes you just gotta have bacon!

If you spend the money, get a BIG, high volume canner so you don't have to do 25 small batches, home canning makes sense.
I went the semi-industrial route, several quarts and bunches of pint jars,
If I'm going to be processing for weeks while the garden comes in, I want to get it through the canner and out of the way as fast as possible.
I went with outdoor burners, like turkey fryer burners to keep the heat out of the house, and a big work table so I can chop, dice, get everything I to cans, then get them through the canner without delays.
We set out to do as much as possible, vetted recipes, figured out proportions, etc, then went to town.

Something like a big All American isn't cheap (cheaper used on eBay) and got a few, so it's like a military mess hall kitchen when I get started, but it actually goes pretty quickly when the garden cooperates...
The one thing about an All American is it never breaks, no matter how old a new weight and new gauge, and it's running like a brand new version.
Parts are still available for most going back to the early 1900s.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I am wanting to expand my stores beyond rice and beans. Those are cheap and a staple for low cost long term storage food. What else should I be looking at for storage that I can do myself, is cheap and can be had easily?

Oats are on the radar. I am probably less interested in wheat, but I am not going to rule it out. Having a grinder and some sort of leavening to me is necessary to make bread and stuff, but educate me if I am wrong on usage.

Also, is there a bulk place beyond Sam's and Costco?

Hit up one of The Seventh Day Adventist Book Stores, they sell food to store including Loma Linda foods.
I believe the nearest on to you would be in Cicero.

 

[bwframe]

If I never even see an MRE again with will be too soon.
I hear other guys I was in the Marines with say they miss them, but I sure don't!

Have you heard of 'One Jar' meals that are home canned?
Bacon, eggs, potatoes, biscuit all in the same jar in layers.
Sausage works better than bacon, but sometimes you just gotta have bacon!

If you spend the money, get a BIG, high volume canner so you don't have to do 25 small batches, home canning makes sense.
I went the semi-industrial route, several quarts and bunches of pint jars,
If I'm going to be processing for weeks while the garden comes in, I want to get it through the canner and out of the way as fast as possible.
I went with outdoor burners, like turkey fryer burners to keep the heat out of the house, and a big work table so I can chop, dice, get everything I to cans, then get them through the canner without delays.
We set out to do as much as possible, vetted recipes, figured out proportions, etc, then went to town.

Something like a big All American isn't cheap (cheaper used on eBay) and got a few, so it's like a military mess hall kitchen when I get started, but it actually goes pretty quickly when the garden cooperates...
The one thing about an All American is it never breaks, no matter how old a new weight and new gauge, and it's running like a brand new version.
Parts are still available for most going back to the early 1900s.

That's good advice. I bought an All American 21-1/2qt six years ago from Amazon. It's great, but apparently you always wish you bought one size bigger.

The outside burner is the only way I've ever canned in mine.

 

[cosermann]

Do you have a suggestion for a good grinder?

+1 on the Country Living Grain Mill. Someone linked to it earlier. Sturdy design. Never had an issue. Spare parts are available for stocking.

 

[spencer rifle]

We make maple syrup in the spring - it will last almost forever. If it molds, scrape the mold off and reboil.

We also can peaches, applesauce and apple butter, garden pickles, Swiss chard, blackberry and grape sauce and jam, tomato sauce, juice, chunks, salsa and ketchup, pears, rhubarb, green beans, and others as opportunity permits. We try to rotate the stock, but because of the shelves used and the space available, that usually involves removing everything and moving the oldest to the front.

A Victorio strainer is your friend.

The apple trees look like a record crop this year, after almost nothing last year.

One of the big issues we have is storing all the empty jars until we need them in the fall. We use both Tattler reusable lids and regular metal lids. Tattlers seem to have a somewhat higher failure rate. We also reuse the metal lids. They say you are not supposed to, but the failure rate is lower that the Tattler lids. Some of our older metal lids have 3 different labels on them.

 

[rlp1776]

Jeepster suggested LDS warehouse ...........................
This is one of the best sources for a large variety of goods ........It is worth checking out.
The one in Indy is located ..5151 W 84th St, Indianapolis, IN 46268 ( facility is located in a distribution warehouse park ) a little hard to find .
Not open all the time . check hours on website . Good prices ......All they ask is for a small donation $$ for providing their service . Go on the tour of the place .
They have a freezer that you can literally drive a semi into .

https://providentliving.churchofjes...ge/home-storage-center-locations-map?lang=eng

What’s up

 

[Magyars]

Don't forget salt.....and not just iodine salt.....canning salts are potentially a must have